Say you're running a server and you don't want to upgrade to Testing (Squeeze) from Stable (Lenny) to just install a required package or two.
What's the best way of installing only certain packages ...

After I have installed a package by yum (with multiple repository configured), how can I found from which repository it has been installed?
If I run yum info package name (or yum list package name), I ...

Are there any 'boxes' available to download for Vagrant that closely mirror the Linux version and packages available for Amazon EC2 instances?
I am testing locally using Vagrant, currently using the ...

I have a debian (well technically ubuntu) source package, i.e. the .dsc, the .tar.gz, etc., I want to build this. The dpkg-buildpackage fails, since I don't have all the build dependencies.
Normally ...

Sirs, a conundrum. I have two packages that each create /usr/bin/ffprobe. One of them is ffmpeg from the Deb Multimedia repository, while the other is ffmbc 0.7-rc5 built from source. The hand-rolled ...

1.) What is the most easiest way to create a "virtual package" in debian?
My problem: I have compiled/installed mysql from source and now need to tell other packages that mysql is already installed ...

We have a number of hand-built (with fpm and jenkins) .deb files in a local Apt repository (reprepro).
These .debs contain a .desktop file that will be picked up by xdg-desktop in a post-inst script.
...

I need to make a once off mirror of all the Ubuntu apt repository (for the record it's because I'm sending it to Kenya (see here and here).
I did it before and used apt-mirror, and that does exactly ...

Is it possible to tell puppet to compile a catalog for one (or all) node(s) and save that particular data somewhere?
I'm specifically interested in getting all needed packages and their versions per ...

I want to reinstall a package on CentOS and start from scratch. In Debian, I can do a apt-get purge foo and it'll remove all config files for foo. yum remove foo doesn't remove the config files. Is ...

As you're probably aware, by default when you install a package on a Debian or Ubuntu based system, if the package contains a service, that service will generally be enabled and started automatically ...

Until now I have always used the SecurityFocus mailing lists to keep myself informed about the possible need of upgrading my server packages. The main problems I have with using this method:
Massive ...

I am starting with ansible and will use it, among others, to install packages on several Linux distros.
I see in the docs that the yum and apt commands are separated - what would be the easiest way ...

Frequently I know the name of the command line program that I need but I don't know the name of the package that provides the program. How do I find the name of the package that contains the program ...

need a link or tutorial on how to make an rpm package work with yum UPDATE. i have it and already works with yum INSTALL and yum ERASE, but is there somewhere info on how to make rpm package work when ...

I cannot find definite information about how a debian package should behave whilst being removed. Should it remove the data? E.g. for mysql I read data is kept which sounds logical to me (using purge ...